Guessing Game
by BabyCharmander
Summary: The Nome King thought he was sending them in one at a time... but little did he know that Jack had a stowaway. One shot. Based on the movie Return to Oz.


Hiya folks! BabyCharmander here. This is my first time posting in this section, murhur. I figured there needs to be more _Return to Oz_ fics out there, so I wrote this one. If you've never seen that movie, this probably won't make any sense, so I recommend you go watch that movie before reading this fic. (…Or just watch the movie anyway. Trust me, it's awesome.)

Thanks to Rat for beta-reading this for me and catching all the crappy errors I made so I could fix them. XD

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or settings in this fic. They belong to… L. Frank Baum, I guess?

On with the fic!

---

He stood still before the entrance to the cave, just for a moment. The sound of rocks clacking together behind him reminded him that the Nome King was not a very patient creature, so he decided to make it quick. Turning his wooden body, he looked back at Dorothy again, waving one of his thin hands. While he'd said it before, he felt the need to say it again: "Goodbye, Mom."

"Bye, Jack," Dorothy replied, waving back. She looked as though she was about to say something else, but was startled by the Nome King's deep, booming voice.

"Go on, Pumpkinhead," the rock-like creature growled, taking a puff from his pipe.

Not wanting to make the Nome King angry, Jack Pumpkinhead stumbled on his awkward legs into the cave. The entrance closed up behind the wooden man, leaving him in an odd tunnel, lit by large, glowing rubies that grew out of the ceiling. With nowhere else to go, he went forward, eventually finding a massive, white-washed room that was absolutely full to the brim with ornaments. Here he stopped; it would require a lot of thinking to figure out just what sort of ornaments the Scarecrow and the Gump had turned into, so he would have to take a moment to compose his thoughts.

…Of course, that's rather difficult to do if one has a chicken in his head.

"Quit wastin' time, Jack," Billina whispered from her perch inside the hollow pumpkin. "We need to find Dorothy's friends and high-tail it out of here."

"I'm trying to think," Jack said, speaking at normal volume. "Why are you whispering, anyway?"

The chicken shushed him, causing him to give a jerk of surprise. "Because this Nome King doesn't seem to like chickens, and I don't like the looks of that fiery furnace!" she hissed.

"Sorry," he replied, lowering his voice. "It's just hard to think with you scratching around in my head like that."

"Well, better get going," Billina grumbled. "At least walk around or something. That king there'll get suspicious if he sees you standin' 'round and whisperin' to yourself."

"I guess you're right." With that, the Pumpkinhead began to walk around the room, being careful not to trip over any ornaments. "You'll help me, won't you?"

"I don't know much more about ornaments than you do." He felt her feathers ruffle a bit. "Why? Can't you figure this out yourself?"

Jack hesitated. "Well, I'm not that smart."

"Pshaw! What makes you think that?"

"Tik-Tok says I'm not. I guess it's because his mechanical brains are better than mine."

Either Billina had nothing to say to that, or she did, but didn't want to. In any case, she kept quiet, so the Pumpkinhead resumed looking around the vast collection of ornaments. It didn't take long before one caught his eye—a statue of a deer, made of pure silver. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "Look at this, B—"

A few scratches from within his head reminded him that he wasn't supposed to be talking so loud, so he lowered his voice. "Hey, look at this, Billina," he whispered. "It kinda looks like the Gump! Er… I _think _it does, anyway. I mean, how he would have looked before."

"I don't know," Billina mumbled. "Don't know much about gumps. I'm just a barnyard chicken from Kansas, not some magical creature from Oz, you know. Don't expect _me _to be familiar with these things."

"Well, I've only been alive for a few days. _I_ don't know everything about Oz, either." He stared down at the statue for a moment before finally making his decision. "I think this is it, though. I'm going to try it." Excitement filled him as he touched the ornament with his hand and shouted, "Oz!"

A rumble filled the air, and the ornament remained where it was.

"…Mister Gump? Are you there?" Jack called, looking around the room.

"I don't think that was it," Billina whispered. She didn't sound angry at him, though, which made sense; she didn't understand this puzzle much more than he did.

"Oh—_well,_" the Pumpkinhead started, saying the second word a bit more quietly when Billina began to dig her claws into his head again. "I'll just try another one. I've got more than half of my guesses left."

"You'll never have _half_ of your guesses left, though," the chicken stated. "You had three guesses to start with, and half of three is one and a half, and you certainly can't have half of a guess."

"Oh." He took a second to ponder that, then shook his head. "Well, in any case, I still have two more guesses left, so I'd best be using them."

"Use them wisely." There was a hint of worry in her voice, but Jack ignored it and resumed walking.

"Hey, I've got an idea!" he whispered excitedly. "If the Gump's ornament isn't in _this _part of the room, maybe if I go to the _other _part of the room, he'll be there!"

"I guess," Billina said, though she didn't sound too sure of her words. Jack didn't notice.

The Pumpkinhead made his way to the other end of the ornament room, careful not to bump into any of the tables or upset the fancy knick-knacks that were placed on top of them. Towards the back, he saw a large diamond set upon a stand. "Wow! This is pretty. Do you think it's Mister Gump, or maybe the Scarecrow that Mom was talking about?"

"I don't know," came the chicken's reply. "I suppose that Scarecrow'd be somethin' fancy lookin' though, since he's supposed to be the king of this Oz place and all."

That seemed to encourage him, and if it were possible, he would probably be grinning wider. "All right, I'll give it a try, then." With that, he placed a wooden hand on the diamond before shouting, "Oz!"

Once more, a rumble filled the room before giving way to silence.

Suddenly, Jack didn't feel so happy anymore. "…One guess left," he said. He didn't have to remember to lower his voice this time—he did it on his own, sounding something like a faint whimper.

"Maybe you'll get it this time," Billina said. While she didn't sound much happier than Jack, she felt she should try to make him feel better.

"I-I'll try to think better this time," the Pumpkinhead muttered as he slowly made his way to another part of the room. Had Billina not been inside the creature's head, she would have found it strange to hear him talking in such sad tones with that permanent smile on his face.

"...Jack, why did you say goodbye to Dorothy twice?" Billina asked. She would never admit it, but she was asking the question now because she was afraid that this might be the last time she would ever get the chance to ask _any _sort of question.

The question caught Jack off-guard, and he stopped walking for a moment. "Well… because," he started, but didn't finish. His tall frame was noticeably drooping.

"Because…?"

"…Because I was p-pretending to say goodbye to my mom. My _real _mom."

Billina was surprised to hear Jack sound so sad. The only time she'd heard even a hint of sorrow in his voice before was when he said he thought his mother had returned, back when they first met him in one of the dusty rooms of Mombi's palace. Though, now that she thought about it, it made sense for him to be so sad. Technically he was only a child, and he'd been separated from his mother, whom he might never—

Oh, what was she doing, thinking like that? It wouldn't help either of them to think things like _that_. She had to help him, for _both _of their sakes. "You'll see your mother again, Jack," she said, trying to keep any uncertainty out of her voice.

"D-do you mean it…?" the Pumpkinhead asked, sounding hopeful for a moment. "But… but wh-what if I m-mess up?"

Billina took a moment to choose her words carefully before answering. "Then Tik-Tok and Dorothy'll have a chance to guess. If Tik-Tok's mechanical brains can't figure out what everyone's turned into, then Dorothy will. I didn't think too much 'bout her at first, but… she's a special girl. She'll help us, somehow."

"…Then what was the point of m-me coming down here t-to guess, if I'm not going to guess right?" Jack was drooping so much that he was in danger of toppling over. "I'm not smart. I _know _I'm not. M-Mom won't be happy if I can't figure out the riddle… and neither will my real mom."

"Jack?" Billina felt the Pumpkinhead straighten up a bit when she spoke, so she knew he was paying attention. "I _am _a mom, you know." She paused. …Well, she _was _a mom at one point, but that was in her younger days… her much, _much _younger days. "…Haven't laid any eggs in a while, but when I was still raisin' my chicks, I was as proud of 'em as I could be. Even if they'd mess up doin' things, so long as they tried, I was happy. Don't see why your mom would be any different."

"…You… you really think so?" Jack straightened up a bit more, seeming to cheer up.

"Yep," the chicken said with a definite bob of her head. "Now let's get goin', before that Nome King gets suspicious."

"Right." With that, Jack continued walking around the ornament room, looking over every object carefully. "I'll try my best!"

Eventually he came across a bright, golden crown, and looked down at it. "Look! Here's a crown," he whispered excitedly. "Kings wear crowns, don't they? Maybe it's the Scarecrow's crown. Do you think so?"

"It's a good guess," Billina replied, cocking her head to one side.

"All right, then."

Jack gazed down at the crown, but didn't touch it immediately like he did the other ornaments. Instead, he thought back to Dorothy helping put him back together, and her kind, smiling face… and he thought of his real mother, although the image of her was fuzzy. (Whether or not that was because Billina was sitting in his head, he wasn't sure.) With those pictures in his mind, he whispered to himself, "I'll see you again, Mom. I don't know if my guess is right, but I tried my very best for you."

Hearing that, Billina clucked proudly in spite of herself. _Not the brightest… _definitely _not the brightest… but he's a fine fellow,_ she thought to herself. _Made it this far with a bunch a' junk, a copper kettle, and this melon-head... and Dorothy. I think we'll get through. _

"Are you ready?"

"Yep."

Jack placed his hand on the crown.

"Oz!"


End file.
